


mere flesh and a little breath and the ruling Reason

by thimbleoflight



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/M, inaugural new body sexy times, u should probably take it out for a spin by going down on her, when ur best friend gives u a new body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 18:02:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13440237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimbleoflight/pseuds/thimbleoflight
Summary: This decaying orbit of their relationship seems to be the consequence of being the oldest people in any room they enter, and having been so for more than a few decades now. Somehow, somewhere between three and four of these replacements ago, they’d hit, so to speak, this particular red line.





	mere flesh and a little breath and the ruling Reason

**Author's Note:**

> title is from Marcus Aurelius's Meditations
> 
> I'm really sorry to everyone involved in the Wolf 359 crew. But not sorry enough to not write it because I wanted to read it.
> 
> Also posted on my tumblr at [this post.](https://thimbleoflight.tumblr.com/post/169954403522/mere-flesh-and-a-little-breath-and-the-ruling)

Neither Marcus nor Miranda has skin that is cold to the touch–what a  _crude_ mistake that would be–but there’s a firmness to his fingertips that betrays the lack of soft tissue under what passes for skin, the places where plastic and silicone meet to give an impression of human texture, and nothing more. These things are covered up most of the time, after all, except for now.

But she’s done a  _very_  good job.  _She_  can feel where his thumbs are digging into her thighs, she knows that something like blood is running through their veins, she let him keep those cardiac quirks like flushed cheeks and heart rates that changed when he was nervous, or excited. The illusion fails if these tiny details aren’t kept.

This, though–how good he looks on his knees in this unfamiliar hotel room, her William, her Charles, her Marcus, now…

(This decaying orbit of their relationship seems to be the consequence of being the oldest people in any room they enter, and having been so for more than a few decades now. Somehow, somewhere between three and four of these replacements ago, they’d hit, so to speak, this particular red line.)

And this charm in submission is not her craftsmanship, though of course, she may have made him more physically handsome than strictly necessary. But that’s all him, she has certainly tried to keep any of her own proclivities out of it, and she never made any adjustments to their own minds, not that the thought didn’t occur to her.

But she doesn’t fix what isn’t broken, and Marcus–she does like the sound of this new name–is too tricky and clever, too many moving parts, all in one man, for her to try to change any one of them. A perfect machine, with a very poor case, prone to rapid decay–already worn out by the time she’d gotten hold of it, all those years ago. All human technology strives towards that which has been perfected already by nature itself, which is to say that no manmade system exists which is not an imperfect copy of something achieved by billions of years of random  _chance_. Miranda, who feels every moment of this billions-years head start that God has, is motivated by this chance, which Marcus has so graciously gifted her, to spit in God’s face.

She lets her head roll back, though the picture of Marcus kneeling on the carpet is so good. Now, he’s dark-haired, and doe-eyed, with long, pretty eyelashes, and a curl to his hair like Clark Kent, and the kind of smile that takes either the blink of an eye, or ten years to cross his face (of course, they have the time).

She rakes her hand through his curls, soft and a little tangled, and she cups his chin in her other hand, as he murmurs, “Her left hand is under my head, and her right hand embraces me.”

His pulse jumps, just under his jaw, and she remembers designing it, showing him who he’d be this time around.  _Oh,_ very _cute_ , he’d said, when the design had been finalized, and she’d kept an eye on his expression, watching for that true smile of his. After a few missteps, the first few times around, she’d gotten the hang of the kinds of cheeks and jawbones that he’d appreciate, the voice that he  _wants_  to have, the way that it wasn’t as important to him to remain the same height or build, the parts of him that he doesn’t mind having changed.

But she’d thought that before, she supposed. Still, she’s learning him better every time, every new him closer to some kind of platonic ideal shape. She won’t ever get there, she thinks, but Marcus would tell her she could do it, if she voiced that doubt.

He doesn’t startle her out of her recollections when he kisses the inside of her thigh, because, to be fair, she’s still half-drunk thinking of how  _well_  she did. The lips were one of the hardest things to get right, all those fiddly little muscles making microexpressions. The fact that he can kiss so well with them is just… collateral. And everything beyond that is a gloriously unintentional marker of success, of which she is about to reap the benefits.

“Marcus,” she says, biting his name off in her mouth before it becomes a plea.

“M-hm,” he says, and he obliges.

He’s dizzyingly good at this, unceasing, but gentle, even as she slips and kicks a bare heel against his back (the hollow thud against his ribcage is so satisfying that she has half a mind to do it again, and the change in angle, just for a moment, is  _everything_  she wanted).

Her hands tighten in his hair, and he groans.

“Miranda, can I–”

“Yes,” she says, “yes, don’t stop, do whatever you like.”

One of his hands moves from her thigh, God knows to where. But she doesn’t mind, because he doesn’t stop, and she drops her head back, shutting her eyes, and all there is, is Marcus, between her legs, his sharp breaths and her own–for a single moment, they’re breathing in sync, hard, and then she’s…

She’s looking at him, with his nose pressed to hair she can’t be bothered to shave (since only Marcus will see and he doesn’t seem to mind), his eyes are shut, his breath ragged, and thinking,  _I made him, and now he is unmade, and does he think the same, when he looks at me?_

He tilts his head up, for a split second, looking at her, or–no, somewhere past her, like he’s looking right through her. And everything in her, everything aches, every muscle tightens, from her hands in his hair to her toes against his back, until she is arching against him, her voice echoing in their small, shared room–

She props herself up on her elbows, and he, correctly, takes this as his cue that there’s nothing further that needs to be done. This time, he does meet her eyes, and beams.

“Well?”

She’s still catching her breath, so she doesn’t say anything. If he’s as winded, then it doesn’t show, which of course it wouldn’t. Marcus is so good at keeping in control, she knows, she  _knows_  any display otherwise is merely that–a display.

HIs cheeks are flushed, and he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. (Marcus is so good at turning obscenity into elegance.)

“No words, huh,” he says, knowingly, which would be irritating, if she hadn’t spent fifty years learning that Marcus really does have a gift for sympathy. She tugs on his shirt collar, and he gets up, more because he is still following her directives than because she is actually strong enough to lift him, though that is something to consider for the next go-around. His shirt is untucked, unbuttoned, and his pants are unzipped–he’s a mess, though, she expects, not as much as she is at the moment, and he buries his face in her neck.

“Get back up,” she says, tugging a few tissues off the nightstand, and, once he’s less of a mess, she zips him up, buttons his shirt, and tucks his shirt back in, as much as she can from this angle, and he collapses back onto the bed again, arranging the two of them until he’s wrapped around her, a hand over her waist. A sigh brushes across the back of her neck, not just breath but his voice as well–Marcus has always been prone to very vocal, showy sighs, but this one, she is sure, is not exasperation, but contentment. She twines their fingers together.

Perhaps it’s just a post-coital glow of happiness, that makes her smile.

And perhaps not. (It might, she is willing to allow, be a little bit more than that.)

“So, what’s the verdict,” he says, voice rumbling in his chest against her back. “Pleased with your work?”

“Hm,” she says, and kisses his hand. “As you are with yours, I’m sure.”


End file.
